Freshly Spilled Thoughts

This is what AI reckons my top 3 qualities are. Basically it says I’m brilliant (and I say that tongue-in-cheek)…

Most people will have heard of this quote:

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans”

The older you get, the more that quote makes sense.

I once watched a film where someone said in it:

“Life is a bit like a movie, except instead of watching it you have to live it to get to the good bits” (paraphrased).

I remember thinking to myself, “Ooh that’s quite good. I’ll use that sometime.”

Turns out my opportunity to use it was next day at work, where I rattled it off as If I’d made it up myself (LOL).

Anyway, after being very pleased with myself at throwing that into a conversation, this woman called Yvonne said, “Hold on. That sounds like something that was in a film the other night.”

I was like, “Ooh? Really? I don’t know…”

(I thought acting vague might work in my favour)

She said, “Yes, I’m sure it was. You got that off the film that was on telly the other night didn’t you?”

“Guilty as charged”

I have no idea what film it was exactly, but I’d like to watch it again and I think the sentiment of it has stood the test of time.

So if ever you’re having a bad day, just remember that the next good bit in the film (of your life) is just around the corner, so keep going.

Side Note: Today is my grandfathers birthday and I can still hear his laugh.

Anyhoo, Monday is here and we’ve got this. Tuesday could be extraordinary 😉

Do you ever have unfinished dreams?

I had one not long ago. Someone I know, who I haven’t seen for some time, invited me to their house and when I got there it was bloody freezing.

In my dream it was like central heating wasn’t even a thing. A bit like when I was a kid, when I used to visit my grandparents. They didn’t have central heating so any room other than the living room basically had windows covered in ice and you could see your breath when you exhaled.

They used to compound this problem by opening the windows for fresh air. Fresh air at -4 degrees? lol.

So there I was in this house, freezing my conkers off, in a road I’m not familiar with and with someone I hadn’t seen for quite a while.

My dream had kind of an ethereal nature to it, as if I was passing between a dreamscape and what could have been reality. It wasn’t in full blown colour, but it wasn’t in black and white either. I remember thinking I don’t know if I’ll last the night here, it’s so cold.

This person was very pleased to see me, so I was weighing up if I’d just ended up at the house of some intrepid explorer who sleeps on icebergs for fun or something.

Yet there was something also inviting about it as there were a couple of blankets scattered about and the room was lit by candlelight.

I didn’t know what to make of it all…

…then I woke up and I’ll never know what happened.

Annoyed much? I should coco. Can you get refunds for unrealised dreams?

If so I’d like one.

Quite a few people from my gym have died over the last few years. It’s enough to put you off celery…

One woman called Jacqui, from my gym was out cycling, which she took up over COVID I think. A car hit her, which she managed to get up from, then a woman in another car got blinded by the sun and hit her again. She didn’t even know she was there in the road.

You can’t really get any more tragic and she was only 46.

I remember seeing her around in the gym.

Then there’s this guy called Eddie who was only 45 ish…

I spoke to him a couple of times in the past I’m sure.

Earlier I read this guy called Chris, from my gym also died 4 days ago…

I’ve spoken to so many people over the years, it’s hard to remember everyone.

RIP to all of them. I didn’t know any of them well at a personal level, but they looked like the picture of health to me in those photos.

3 years ago a guy I knew well enough to go to his wedding, who I also used to drink with in my 20’s, died under similarly tragic circumstances I will not elaborate on. It’s still strange to think he’s not around anymore.

I feel I should at least post a photo of him here but I’m not intending to hurt anyone’s feelings who may stumble across this post from elsewhere who may know him or be related to him.

Such a nice guy and someone I will not forget. I bumped into him once when he was carrying two big bags of shopping in the supermarket. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years until then. As soon as he saw me, he dropped the bags down on the floor to chat and went, “DEANOOO”. I always remember he spared the time rather than rushing to get on with whatever he was doing that day.

I seem to be attracting a lot of birds lately…

Annoying Seasonal Bug – Check ✔️

Lemsip Filled With Lemon Flavoured Optimism in a Sachet – Check ✔️

Still Stubbornly Trained For 70 Minutes – Check ✔️

Fantasised At Solero’s In The Chiller Of Dairy Based Persuasion – Check ✔️

Walked Away From The Solero’s, Demonstrating Iron Willpower – Check ✔️

Returned to the Solero’s, Abandoning Willpower Associated With Any Type Of Metal – Check ✔️

Purchased the Solero’s, Rejoicing In The Ability To Be Flexible With Willpower Levels – Check ✔️

Staggered out of the Supermarket Like a Dead Man Walking – Check ✔️

Reflect on The Fact Nobody Realises You’re a Dead Man Walking – Check ✔️

For All They Know You’re A Retired Olympian – Check ✔️

Consumed a Solero – Check ✔️

Now A Dead Man Walking That Has Eaten A Solero – Check ✔️

Tear Lemsip Sachet Open Eagerly – Check ✔️

Pour Hot Water Onto This Powdery Promise, Made By Little Goblins in a Pharmaceutical Factory – Check ✔️

Wait For Paracetamol To Trick the Brain Into Thinking You’re Temporarily Normal – Check ✔️

Think Of Good Things You Can Eat At Times Like This – Check ✔️

Finds Orange – Check ✔️

Eats Orange – Check ✔️

The Man From Del Monte Would Be Proud. No Wonder He’s So Well – Check ✔️

Write A Silly Blog Post – Check ✔️

This One – Check ✔️

Stop Writing.

Check ✔️

I typed in painkiller to add a gif to this note and it gave me this:

If you do that, be sure to take your Lemsip first.

Tut tut, before the watershed as well.

Why do nurses in gifs like this have really long noses?

And what is she doing with that needle.

She’d make a terrible dominatrix.

Summer seems a hot minute away now eh…

This guy is one of my heroes. His name is Matthew Smith and back around 1982/1983 he single handedly coded a game that was mesmerising to me in the early part of my childhood. He was only about 17 when he programmed Manic Miner and he’d work at night at his parents house in Wallasey, because the kettle boiling to make tea in the day would trip out the electricity and erase all his work.

Back then we didn’t really have anything, materially speaking, and were pretty close to the breadline as I’m sure many people were back then.  The only way I even got a computer was to ask my folks for it as a combined birthday and Christmas present.

My dad brought this game home from work one day and for the next 8 hours+ I forgot to drink or eat. For the next few weeks it would have had a similar effect.

Zen to me is anything you do in a flow state where you’re not thinking about the past or the future, you’re just lost in the now. The flow state is where you really want to be because that’s where you are ALIVE. If you happen to be around people you care about, then so much the better.

When I was a kid that was the first thing that consumed my imagination to the point where nothing else mattered for that brief window of time.

The man is a genius. He should have been a millionaire but life didn’t quite pan out that way for him, but he is loved and you can’t buy that. He seemingly disappeared off the grid for a number of years. I think at one point he ended up working in a factory and then a Dutch commune.

All he got for Manic Miner was £30,000 which must have seemed like a lot back in the 1980’s but it’s not enough to live the life of the rich and famous is it.

Matt was quite deeply affected by how much he’d been stitched up on the financial front and I recall him saying in one interview, “My therapist has told me not to talk about this”.

He sort of became a mythical figure because nobody knew where he’d disappeared to for years.

Someone even set up a website trying to work out where he was: http://www.carlylesmith.karoo.net/spectrum/matsmith/

There is a brilliant quote by him which is as follows:

“There is not enough land. True communists are people who live in communes, villages, tribes. I’d like to live like that, but always with the communications we’ve got. There should be an end to cities. Cities should have walls around them to keep the city in.”

So in this post I salute Matthew Smith (below is a screenshot of a recent video he was in – it does not play).

Christmas build-up is in full swing. Some people have already gone to town with the Chrimbo decorations haven’t they.

I’ve joined in by purchasing a bottle of Trivento ‘Merry’ Malbec. Is the word ‘merry’ a substitute for the term: “This gets you pissed“?

Trouble is it won’t last until Christmas.

Last time I saw Santa, he was propped up in a bar somewhere with a mince pie and a glass of sherry.

Brazen as you like.

My plan once I’m in the mood for it today is to run like Forrest Gump.

“I just kept on runnin'”

Whenever I hear this De La Soul song I think of Forrest Gump. If I told you how many times I’ve listened to this track you’d never believe me:

When I was a kid and everything was offline I never imagined that when I was older, being hit up in the DMs would be a thing in 2025.

My grandfather met my grandmother by flicking a cigarette at her when she was walking past.

It’s that box of chocolates thing again.

If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be typing this now.

I owe my life to a Benson and Hedges cigarette 😁

Me with some geezer trying to get my autograph (just kiddin’ – known him a while)…

Do you remember Blind Date with Cilla Black?

It was as cheesy a show as you could possibly get and it was also innocent by todays standards.

“Now let’s go over to our Graham for a quick reminder“.

There was a couple on the radio earlier who met on that show in 1989, married in 1991 and are still together in 2025.

Which is either romantic, unbelievable, or proof that low expectations really are the secret.

When they pulled back the screen to reveal each other, the bloke said, “I’ve got a hairy chest.”

The woman replied, “Have you? That’s interesting… I’ve got one as well.”

Ha ha… classic.

5000 people outside the church.

400 friends at the wedding paid for by the TV company.

And yes, Cilla turned up.

Wearing her hat.

Of course she did.

Been a while since I listened to Daft Punk, but at one time the album Discovery got a lot of airtime on planet Dean.

I used to play this track quite a bit back then – Face to Face.

This is the thing with Daft Punk. The first time I played it again today, after years of not hearing it, I thought… meh.

Left it on while I was writing this and it quietly climbed back into the good/catchy category.

A couple more listens and I’ll be walking up the aisle (lol)…

Someone at work put me onto this album when it first came out. I remember he’d sunk every penny he had into a Peugeot 306 GTI, which depreciated faster than a lead balloon, and he said:

“My car is the only real asset I have.”

That always stuck with me.

It’s a bit like saying, “I’ve invested in sand. I hope it doesn’t blow away.”

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger was the other track I remember liking off the album.

I was thinking about something else and managed to open the fridge door into my face.

There’s nothing worse than beating yourself up by accident.

“You did this to yourself, Dean.”

“I know. I know.”

“Can you just stop beating yourself up. In a world where you can be anything, be kind to your face.”

Also, can someone please tell me what He-Man is doing in this gif?

That’s not right, is it.

The next 2 books on my casual reading list are…

When I can find the time, which lately seems to be never 🙂

Many moons ago, before I was educated enough to realise Doner kebabs were bad for my health, I often used to pop into a place that made kebabs and I’d order a doner in pitta bread with salad.

There was a ‘jolly’ bloke (reminded me of Friar Tuck) in there serving and he always gave about twice as much as what he should have done per customer.

By the time he’d wrapped it up, the thing was positively bulging at the seams.

He put so much salad in there, you could have made about 5 kebabs with it (LOL).

To this day I still have fond memories of him, because he was so generous there was no way they were making any profit. Customers tend to love non-profit making kebab shops.

The same thing happened the other night, in a pub, but this time it featured a roll with cheese and onion in it.

I looked inside the roll and there was a literally a SLAB of cheddar in there, with a sprinkle of onion (relatively speaking). It was like whoever had been cutting up the cheddar said, “Let’s just give them loads and blow their minds with cheese without worrying about returns”.

If cheese was a drug and the bloke cutting up the cheddar was the drug dealer, he’d be the only one in the area running at a loss with 5 star ratings.

“He only lasted a week in business selling cheese on that street corner but what a wonderful week it was.”

I actually found the prospect of eating it quite daunting. It’s not often you look at a cheese roll and say to yourself, “This is TOO much.”

I made a joke that it was a ‘coronary in a bap’.

Turns out it wasn’t. I ate the lot and lived to tell the tale in the form of this update.

There aren’t many problems in this world that cannot be solved with a slab of cheese, that’s what I say.

Chillaxing in the car with Shaggy…

‘Malarkey’ and ‘Gusset’ are two very good words in the English language.

Anyone who thinks otherwise should be treated with the utmost suspicion. There are so many things you can add a bit of zip to with these words and the audience will generally marvel at their inclusion; some have even been known to swoon.

If ever you should encounter an individual that frowns upon these words, promptly bid them good-day and turn your heel without so much as a second thought.

On the flipside, the word ‘moist’ should never be celebrated, not even in reference to tasting sessions involving carrot cake.

Well, I finished watching Frankenstein on Netflix and it was so far up my alley, they might as well have put 10 skittles at the end of it.

VICTTOOORRRRRR

Say my name. Say my name.

So far, I haven’t seen anything rubbish with Guillermo Del Toro’s name behind it.

Imagine being Dr. Frankenstein though:

Dr: “I’ve created a monster”

Shopkeeper: “Oh that’s nice. Did you do that during the 6 weeks holiday?”

Dr: “No. It’s been an all consuming passion for longer than I care to remember”

Shopkeeper: “Sounds deep. Do you want some potatoes? These are ideal for baking.”

Dr: “No I need to talk about the monster. It’s weighing heavily on my mind”

Shopkeeper: “Oh I see. You’re venting. What’s pre-occupying you so much it’s distracting you from our deals?”

Dr: “The only thing it ever says is VICCTOORRRR. It’s driving me insane and he follows me everywhere”

Shopkeeper: “Victor is you I take it?”

Dr: “Yes. There was a song by Destiny’s Child called Say My Name playing on the radio when I created him and he hasn’t stopped ever since”

Shopkeeper: “Can’t you change your name by deed poll?”

Dr: “That will not help. He just follows me around saying Victor. The low IQ level on display is very disappointing. It’s either that or he’s turned this into a running joke just to torment me.”

Shopkeeper: “Maybe he’s just a slow learner?”

Dr: “I am going to try to create a partner for him and hopefully he will call her Victor instead”

Shopkeeper: “Good luck Dr. Would love to chat longer, but Mrs. Braithwaite has just walked in to pick up her cottage loaf”

You can tell a lot about what someone likes or doesn’t like, just by observing their body language.

The other day I happened to catch about 15 minutes of A Place In The Sun. They were in Spain and it was a couple looking for a holiday home near the beach for less than £100K.

The first property was about 30 minutes from the beach and the woman loved it. I don’t know what the bloke thought, because she just said, “We love it don’t we” and before he had chance to respond she was already putting a bid in with the vendor (lol).

I jest of course. Her eyes lit up as soon as she walked into the front garden and I think she was already deciding on new curtains before she walked in. Nice when something just clicks, isn’t it.

So yes, they seemed to like the first one. The presenter then showed them two near the beach, which is where they said they wanted to be, but they absolutely hated those two properties.

The presenter basically then showed them a carbon copy of the first property. It even had the same tiles in the kitchen (just a different colour).

I still have no idea if he actually liked any of it, but if she was happy he was happy. That was my gist of proceedings.

They put a bid in, which was rejected, so then they bid 1.5K higher which was was accepted.

She couldn’t believe how easy it had all been and broke down in tears. I think she had been expecting to don armour and go into battle to get it.

Bless! To be fair it was a nice property. I wonder if they’d have any objections to me moving in next door.